Gasification of Scrap Metal

Dear group.
There are those among you who have the knowledge to quantify the amount
of thermal energy which can be theoretically extracted from a chemical
reaction. I have heard some say that on a quite night you can hear a ford
rusting, This brings up the following question:
If you instantly converted the Ford to a pile of rust, how much heat could
be obtained. I have seen an experiment where a quartz tube is packed with
steel wool and heated with a Bunson to a vigorous temperature while steam is
blown through the packed tube. The result, as you all know is the
evolution of hydrogen as the red hot metal absorbs the oxygen from the hot H2O
(steam). This is somewhat like the reverse process, When heat was applied in
the presence of carbon in order to absorb the oxygen from the ore. So we
have in a way reversed the process, which brings me to a puzzling question
after I had read the following statement:

"The losses can (in theory) be arbitrarily close to zero, so the maximum
thermodynamic efficiency equals the enthalpy change divided by the free
energy change of the reaction. In most cases, the electric input is larger than
the enthalpy change of the reaction, so some energy is released in the form
of heat. In some cases, for instance, in the electrolysis of steam into
hydrogen and oxygen at high temperature, the opposite is true. Heat is
absorbed from the surroundings, and the heating value of the produced hydrogen is
higher than the electric input".

Is it feasable to extract the energy that went into producing the metal
from the ore?
Would it be possible to build a metal burning gasifier?
Like a totally enclosed plasma furnace with a steam supply?
I just happen to have access to an abundant supply of metal shavings.

GF